


somewhere only we know

by cloverfield



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alcohol, KuroFai Zine, Language Barrier, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sign Language, Six Months of Mutual Pining, The Dragon and the Phoenix, There Is Only One Bed, Zine, non-verbal communication, yama arc, zine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23327539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: [advance] signs Fai, hands flicking restlessly, gaze lidded and dark.Come here, he means, and the heaviness of his stare makes a lie of the lightness of his fingers.
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane
Comments: 11
Kudos: 73





	somewhere only we know

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the KuroFai Zine _The Dragon and the Phoenix_ , released by [@kurofaizine](https://twitter.com/kurofaizine)! I was so excited to get to participate - this is my first ever submission to a zine... and now also my 100th fic on AO3!
> 
> If you'd like to learn more about this really exciting fandom project, featuring art and stories by over 20 creators, have a look at the twitter account for more details ♥

Fai brings the rain in with him, the smell of wet leather and woodsmoke and the odd metal tang of the dragonsteeds chased in through the flap of the tent as he shuffles inside and out of the storm. Wet hair clings to his face and neck, the heavy folds of his cloak strangling and sodden as it swings about his shoulders. Dark fabric comes free with an ugly splat as Fai claws his way out of it with obvious irritation, huffing tangled hair away from his eyes with an angry breath.

He’s quite clearly drunk again, even without the whiff of booze Kurogane catches fuming from his clothes, black eyes hot in the way they only are after at least three cups of the stinging moonshine they brew behind the stables. Fai wobbles as he scrapes his boots off, socked feet slipping unsteadily on the reed matting as he stumbles into their shared quarters.

If Kurogane cared at all what Fai did with his leave hours, he might protest – especially since the wily bastard slipped away to leave Kurogane alone to wrestle with the stacks of paperwork that commanding a battalion together as lead and second leaves them with – but even if the idiot _has_ been carousing with the conscripted men that cluster around the forgeyard, he has manners enough to bring back a jug, and Kurogane’s not going to argue with that.

The clay is cool and damp, already condensed with fat beads of moisture across the lip of its mouth, and the cork squeaks when Kurogane pries it free to belch forth a fume of alcohol strong enough to make his eyes water. It tastes like paint-thinner on the first draught, and it’s likely just as poisonous, but it doesn’t burn so bad once you get used to it.

[rations] gestures Fai, skinny fingers wiggling as he wobbles towards the cots wedged together by the tent pole. It was maybe the third sign he learnt from Kurogane’s somewhat fruitful attempts to teach him, and it’s the one he uses for everything from their shared supper to the hard-tack packed into saddle-bags on the march.

[no] was the first and remains the most commonly used, usually in answer to Kurogane’s attempts to prise Fai from the embrace of his bedding for dawn drills, and then [horse] for the dragonsteed they share between them. The last one isn’t quite right, but it’s as close as shinobi fingerspeech can get to describing a creature with scales and a snout.

Fai groans as he stumbles backwards, the tight canvas of the cot creaking as he flops onto his side. The heavy weight of his coin-purse bulges at his narrow hip, clinking as he tumbles atop it. He’s been gambling again, and that explains the liquor – more than one soldier has tried to drink Fai into incompetence at dice tonight. [terrain unstable] is the unspoken declaration, the movement of his fingers exaggerated and sloppy – Fai groans even louder when Kurogane nudges the skinny leg left draped slack over the side of the cot with the toes of his foot.

“You did this to yourself – you’ll get no pity from me.”

(He wouldn’t take it, if it were given – Kurogane knows that much. He drinks when he’s scared – Kurogane knows that much too.)

Black eyes squint through the splayed fingers of the pale, trembling hand that covers Fai’s face, the other rising to sign something very rude that needs no translation at all. Kurogane snorts a laugh and takes another mouthful, the fumes stinging as they cloud across his tongue; he nudges Fai with his foot again to make him roll over to his back, the wet tangles of his hair spilling across their coarse bedding.

[advance] signs Fai, hands flicking restlessly, gaze lidded and dark. _Come here_ , he means, and the heaviness of his stare makes a lie of the lightness of his fingers _._

[hold] replies Kurogane, one-handed and amused. He’s not done drinking yet, and Fai has drunk far too much if he’s being this bold this early in the night.

[advance] is repeated twice more, Fai whining through his teeth as he leans back on his elbows, face pale and throat bare in the lanternlight that flickers over rain-damp skin. It glows a halo to the crown of silk-slick hair, golden splashes against the dark navy of his gambeson, the wet brown leather of his cuirass cutting into his heaving belly. There’s no mistaking the spark in his eye, not in such close quarters, and the sheer possibility of that look beneath heavy eyelids kindles Kurogane’s blood to burning.

Fai is a striking sight, and he well knows it: a weaker man than Kurogane would have yielded to that obvious, _hopeful_ invitation long before this. But Fai is drunk and lonely and afraid, and Kurogane is the only anchor to which he can tether himself in a world in which he cannot speak, cannot escape; no invitation offered in such circumstance, no matter how tempting, could ever be accepted.

“Don’t fall asleep in your armour, idiot,” is what Kurogane says, throat husking and tight beneath the bite of the alcohol, and Fai sighs low and soft beneath the weight of rejection. His head tips back as he looks up at Kurogane, lolling heavy on narrow shoulders so the frayed and tangled strands of fair hair catch in the buckles of his cuirass in sticky strands of moon-yellow. In the light of Kurogane’s lantern burning from the writing desk shoved haphazard into the corner of the tent, Fai’s eyelashes are pale as silk-floss cast delicately against the fine-boned shape of his thin face, and his black eyes are wet and terribly sad.

Fai needs to eat more. Fai needs to stop gambling, and to drink less, and to sleep without the dreams that stoke him into abject horror, that leave him awake and whispering his scratch-voiced fears into the darkest hour of the night; Fai needs to let Kurogane _help him_ , let Kurogane take the hands that reach out trembling and wild into the unknown, let Kurogane fight by his side against whatever dread foe this Ashura that he runs from might be –

(some demon of his past, or demon in truth; it doesn’t matter, only that Fai knows _he need not stand_ _alone_ )

– but what Fai needs and what Fai wants and what Kurogane can give him are worlds apart, and the loneliness from having their tiny group rent asunder is the only thing they can share, not unless Fai can peel back that cracked and smiling mask to let Kurogane see the true face of the man beneath.

[yield] signs Fai, fingers slow and shaking – _I give up_ – and Kurogane steps forward enough to press against Fai’s leg where it dangles lazily over the edge of the cots they share. They are two strangers in a strange world, and it makes sense that Kurogane would be the one Fai clings to: who else does he have, but Kurogane?

(but Kurogane wants to be wanted, and not just needed, and if he is honest, he’s not a good enough man for either)

[up] signs Kurogane, fingers flicking, and Fai groans unhappily as he hauls himself upright and seated. He puts up no fight as Kurogane kneels down on rustling reeds, unbuckling the straps of his armour, and even manages the coordination to help a little at the task of undressing. The smell of damp leather and wet man and quite a lot of liquor rises like steam from the pale skin exposed as Kurogane helps Fai strip each layer of armour away, one by one, leaving him black-eyed and bare beneath Kurogane’s gaze.

Undressed down to small-clothes and wracked with chills that set skinny limbs to shaking, Fai’s teeth are chattering as Kurogane bundles him ungently into the scratchy wool of their bedding. Nights in Yama are as cold as the distant lonely moon, and sharing is not so much a choice as it is a necessity: more than once Kurogane has woken to frost creeping at the canvas of their tent and his own breath curling like steam from the tight knot of their bedding, Fai’s pale hair a soft tangle tucked beneath his chin as they huddled together like beasts in desperate hope of warmth.

Fai watches him, bedded down and drowsy as he lays back against the cot, and the shape of his mouth twists softly into something that cannot be a smile: trembling and weak and too vulnerable to be anything at all but real. [advance] he signs again, poking his hands just above the nest of blankets. This time the invitation has no hidden meaning at all, only the wish of a soldier who would share warmth with another on a cold and rainy night.

[advance] agrees Kurogane, standing up at last. The dregs of the paperwork – brigade maps that Kurogane will make Fai sketch out with ink and pen on the scraps of parchment they use for planning as he grumbles in protest – can wait for morning and breakfast besides. His penmanship is strange, a spidering scrawl that Kurogane cannot hope to read, but the shape and logic of Fai’s diagrams show a grasp of tactics so similar to that which Kurogane himself learnt at his father’s knee years ago.

There’s more to Fai than a fake smile or the black eyes Yama has given him; more even than the cold and powerful core that hides beneath the scarred skin of a survivor, or the tiny fragile love he has for the children, growing sweet and slow as a seedling sprouting between the brittle cracks of that icy heart.

The lantern snuffs out with a huff of breath, and the ties of his sleeping robes come loose easily as Kurogane walks softly across their reedy carpet and back to Fai’s side. Fai himself makes a sleepy murmur as Kurogane peels back the blankets, shuffling across the thin mattress to lie atop the cot beside him. Cold hands find Kurogane and pull him close in the darkness, the shared warmth of skin on skin chasing away the chill between them, if only for a little while.

Morning will bring their ninety-third day in Yama. Kurogane may not yet know what secrets Fai hides, behind black eyes or blue, but one day he will.

In this world, alone with Fai, he has nothing but time.

**Author's Note:**

> For me, Those Six Months in Yama will always be the greatest KuroFai mystery never told. How did Fai and Kurogane communicate without speech? Did they give into temptation, or did they fight against it? Did they know they were falling in love, or did they harden their hearts and force themselves not to feel? Did they look into one anothers' black eyes and feel lost, or did being two strangers together in an unknown land bind them closer than ever before?
> 
> How did they sleep at night? Separately, on hard canvas beds held at arm's length... or curled together in the dark, wondering if they were ever going to see their new family again?
> 
> ...what happened in Yama, CLAMP? _WHAT HAPPENED IN YAMA?!_


End file.
